‘Just unfathomable’: Cat rescue community mourns loss of fatal fire victim

She met Sarah Berger in, probably, the most fitting way feasible: Even though rescuing a cat.

The smaller, grey shorthair was trapped up in a tree at Berger’s household in Winooski. Berger termed a local animal rescue and advocacy firm, exactly where Kathee Ludwig had just commenced volunteering. Ludwig borrowed a ladder from a neighbor to access the cat, and “we were friends from that moment on,” she recalled in an job interview very last week. 

In numerous other scenarios, nevertheless, it was Berger rescuing the cats herself. She did not do it for a dwelling — there was no money in it, in any case — but conserving cats was, in several approaches, her life’s do the job, Ludwig and other mates stated. Berger later on moved north to Richford and would go on to treatment for as lots of as hundreds of farm cats during Franklin County.

Berger, 68, died before this thirty day period in a hearth that razed her home and probably killed the 10 cats that lived with her. Her loss of life has remaining some others who glimpse soon after farm cats in the location wondering what they’ll do without having her.

“Just the assumed of her being long gone is actually tragic for Franklin County, simply because I would get calls all the time for her,” Ludwig explained. “She was just so lively in the group.” 

Berger would generate miles and miles a day to make certain quite a few feral cat colonies in the area had meals and warm shelter, mates said. She also worked intently with rescue corporations to bring feral cats to regional veterinarians, where by they could be spayed and neutered, and then released back again outside — a process recognised as “trap-neuter-return.” 

When Berger came across friendly strays, she often aided them come across households. 

“Especially in the Richford place, she was the eyes and ears to enable maintain the populace underneath manage,” reported Charlotte Benedict, who lives in nearby Swanton. “We’re all just scrambling at this level to make sure that all the things she was feeding stays fed.”

Berger’s pals bear in mind her as a straight shooter with a big heart. She did not carry a cellphone, in accordance to Benedict, but retained scrupulous paper data documenting her function with the cats — most, if not all of which, were shed in the dwelling fireplace on March 8.

And in accordance to good friends and coworkers, Berger’s organizational techniques shined in her day position as bookkeeper for the CCTV Centre for Media & Democracy, the Burlington-based mostly television station. Berger started out there in 1995. Meghan O’Rourke, CCTV’s assignments director, attributes significantly of the organization’s money balance to Berger’s diligence.

“She was a bookkeeper who understood what we are trying to do as a local community media firm,” O’Rourke said. “And that was just tremendous particular.”

O’Rourke also observed Berger’s magic with cats firsthand, she wrote in a information to close friends and loved ones customers immediately after her death. O’Rourke recalled bringing Berger “a feral old barn cat” in the late 1990s to be spayed and then released, soon after which Berger took the cat in herself.

“A couple of weeks later,” O’Rourke wrote, “(Berger) brought me back again a wonderful, washed, and groomed residence cat who experienced no desire in just about anything other than pats and laps.”

Berger graduated from Richford High Faculty in 1972 and then attended cosmetology faculty in Burlington, in accordance to an obituary released in the Saint Albans Messenger. She labored as a hairdresser for 15 decades right before getting her job at the Tv station. 

Berger also loved outdoor things to do, which include hiking, swimming and riding horses, according to the obituary. She is survived by her sister and her son, who could not be attained for comment for this story.

Benedict and other people program to host a absolutely free spay and neuter clinic for stray and feral cats in the Richford location both to honor Berger’s work and help tackle some of the want she is no for a longer time filling. They strategy to publish extra particulars about the clinic before long.

“It’s a large decline to a whole lot of men and women,” said Annie Malloy, co-founder of the firm Cat Crusaders of Franklin County. “She remaining a large hole — not to point out remaining missed, individually, by us people.”